Biography William Collins

William Collins was an English landscape and genre painter. In the late 19th century his work was more popular and highly valued than even Turner or Constable.

Collins was born in Great Titchfield Street, London, son of William Collins Snr., an Irish-born picture-dealer and writer. He showed a great aptitude for art from an early age, and was, for a time, an informal pupil of George Morland. In 1807, he entered the schools of the Royal Academy (at the same time as William Etty) - exhibiting there in the same year. In 1809 he gained a medal in the life school, and exhibited three pictures - Boy at Breakfast, Boys with a Bird's-nest and a Portrait of Master Lee as he spoke the Prologue at the Haymarket Theatre.